Red Bull (Daniel Ricciardo 10th, Max Verstappen 5th) – 6.5/10

The Milton Keynes team played down their own chances despite a number of upgrades from testing and so it proved.

Verstappen achieved the best they had hoped for while Ricciardo, pushing for extra time late in the lap, ditched his car into the barriers.

The Australian will hope he does not have to make a gearbox change that will see him drop a further five places.

Haas (Romain Grosjean 6th, Kevin Magnussen 17th) – 8/10

They were team of the year in 2016 and might get the gold star for today.

The whooping on the radio and gaping smile afterwards should tell you Grosjean was delighted with getting onto the third row.

Magnussen will be disappointed to have been out-qualified by 11 places, the biggest gap on the grid, but any points for Haas will be a huge result.

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Romain Grosjean was delighted to put his Haas on the third row

Williams (Felipe Massa 7th, Lance Stroll 19th) – 7/10

Massa and Stroll have both had problems in Australia and the F1 rookie suffered yet another setback in Saturday morning practice, damaging his Williams to the extent that engineers were still working on the car when Q1 got under way – he will start last thanks to a gearbox change and a five-place grid penalty.

Massa meanwhile showed that he still has plenty of ability and the Mercedes-powered Williams is not a slow car.

Toro Rosso (Carlos Sainz 8th, Daniil Kvyat 9th) – 7.5/10

Only Massa and Grosjean beat the Toro Rosso in the hotly contested midfield battle and Sainz appeared to think he could have gone further up the grid had he not struggled to react after the 15-minute break for Ricciardo's recovery.

Kvyat meanwhile has a lot to prove but was only a tenth behind the Spaniard and should be challenging for points on Sunday.

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Force India (Sergio Perez 11th, Esteban Ocon 14th) – 5/10

If Vijay Mallya really wants to finish third in the Constructors' Championship as he claimed at the car launch, today's performance will not cut much mustard.

Perez has been put on an extreme diet to drop weight because the car itself is heavier than it should be.

The Mercedes engine should help Mercedes’ Young Driver Programme Member Ocon too but 14th is not the kind of place he wants to be.

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Renault (Nico Hulkenberg 12th, Jolyon Palmer 20th) – 4/10

Palmer mouthed off at his “terrible" car after finishing dead last, even if Stroll's drop means he will start 19th.

The Brit crashed on Friday and admitted the rebuild was remarkable but with so little running on ultra-soft tyres and with qualifying fuel load, he can hardly be surprised that the car felt strange.

Hulkenberg meanwhile produced one of the quickest laps of Saturday practice and his pace suggests the car is not the only problem on Palmer's side of the garage…

McLaren (Fernando Alonso 13th, Stoffel Vandoorne 18th) – 4.5/10

Oh dear. There was a familiar radio message for Vandoorne on his first hot lap – "Box, box. We've got a fuel flow issue."

He got out and did a lap though, even if it wasn't stellar. Alonso meanwhile was more than a second quicker but remember that he had some aero upgrades not available to his junior team-mate because there wasn't time to build them.

If both cars go full race distance, that will be an achievement. That said, 13th is not the worst it could have been by a long shot.

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McLaren's struggles continued during Australian Grand Prix qualifying

Sauber (Marcus Ericsson 15th, Antonio Giovinazzi 16th) – 5.5/10

Odds-on favourites to finish last in the championship, there was some good news for the Swiss team on the first day of proper competition.

With Pascal Wehrlein declaring himself unfit to drive due to a back issue, Giovinazzi had just an hour of practice before coming within a hair's breadth of Q2.

Ironically, it was Ericsson's lap that displaced the Italian at the last minute.